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So… Yeah!

We ended up spending 2 hours at the maternity hospital this evening watching “Das Blinkenlights” while they monitored me because I thought that maybe perhaps my waters had broken a little.

No such luck… To top it off she hasn’t even engaged yet… Poot! But Jon was pleased to discover that the TVs in each of the patient bed areas had the Cartoon Network, so glad that he will enjoy his stay then when the time comes.

We came home via Baldock and the 24 hour Tesco and are now about to have some pizza.

At this rate I am now convinced that she’s going to go over dates and I’m going to go nuts due to the immobility and what not.

Not even the camera charger makes up for this :-p Although I did get alot of pieces photographed this afternoon.

Tomorrow I must deal with those dratted table runners…

It was reported today that the driver who hit and killed a cyclist (who died from head injuries) while she was texting in her car has been jailed for 4 years and banned from driving for 5.

Now, while I agree that the use of mobile phones while driving is incredibly stupid and also was I thought illegal (not that that seems to deter people), there were a few points about the situation that meant that I found the whole outcome a little uneven. Additionally the fact that she was going 15 miles over the speed limit is something that shouldn’t be forgotten.
The victim’s family said the following:

“We are pleased with the outcome of this trial and hope Jordan’s death will prevent or deter others from using their mobile phones whilst driving.”

Fine, I can understand that loosing one’s brother in this senseless way is a tragedy and easily preventable.

However I’ll draw your attention to two things about the cyclist as reported in the article

1. He went through a red light and was subsequently hit by the car
2. He wasn’t wearing a helmet.

This kind of makes me choke when I read his family say (my italics):

“He was a bright, intelligent and beautiful person who will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him.”

Since when is not obeying the Highway Code intelligent, or for that matter not wearing a cycle helmet, which might have saved his life.

It seems to me that the blame for this accident should be apportioned appropriately (yes I do believe that the majority of it lies at the feet of the driver) or at the very least a statement to the effect of asking cyclists to also obey the rules of the road and take required safety precautions should have been made by the family/police.

My own mother has been knocked down on at least two separate occasions (at the same crossing) by cyclists who feel that the red light for traffic at a pedestrian crossing doesn’t apply to them, and on the last occasion had the nerve to use some extremely strong language addressing my mother as she picked herself up.

I’ve discovered that the real menace of being at home during the day is not the danger of ending up watching the human bear-baiting that is day time television, but cold calling of the phone call variety.

Just to set the scene, I’m extremely pregnant, our stairs are very narrow and very steep, and I have two very young excitable cats who want their lunch.

A few moments ago I was just upstairs doing a spot of tidying when the phone rang. The phone in the bedroom needs charging so I had to go down stairs into the dining room to answer it. While I went down at a reasonable pace, my two very hungry cats went down with me, between my legs so they could take up their places in the kitchen to do the chorus of “No we’ve never been fed, we’ve never seen food”.

Additionally I have a very elderly grandmother in the US, and my husband also has not quite so elderly but nonetheless frail relatives, so it might not be outside the realms of probability that we might be called to tell us that someone was taken very ill.

So I was exceedling annoyed to find that it was Accident Helpline calling to see if I had suffered an accident in the last 2 to 3 years. Gritting my teeth I said that we were not interested and hung up. In retrospect of course I could have pointed out that in calling the house, and with me in my condition and with cats as pingly as they are I could have very easily just have sustained a nasty fall down a narrow stairs on to a hard tiled floor, and that they would be the ones getting sued.

We live in a No Cold Calling zone this covers people coming to the door soliciting for business not telephone calls, but we are also on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS, no not that TPS) which means that these businesses should not be phoning us.

Last week at 9pm, if you can believe it, I got a phone call from BT trying to get us to take up a VISA(!) card with them. This, I was told, was in a effort to retain us as customers(!!). Again the teeth gritted and I said I wasn’t interested. Asked why, I bluntly stated that I had a credit card and I made a point of only having one as I didn’t require an additional one.

Of course I have no idea if other calls of this nature were attempted when I was working, they never came on the two days that I was at home. I could start to become paranoid that this is an attempt to cause me to abandon my plans to be a stay-at-home mum and concentrate on my jewellery business, and return to a nice safe office where no one will call me trying to sell me credit cards and other dubious services I neither want nor require.

As you may be aware they are proposing changes to the Congestion Charges in London, in addition to increasing the Zone to incorporate areas of West London they are proposing to charge £25 for cars which have emission rates of over 225grams/Km.

As reported this morning on the BBC News website. Porsche are threatening to challenge this rise.

Porsche! PORSCHE!

They say that the charge is disproportionate and unfair, and if you have a larger family car, then perhaps this might sound reasonable. (We are allowed to be somewhat smug because our Golf Match, bought in October, is well below the emission rate and we don’t drive into the Congestion Zone, because we aren’t insane…)

Now I might forgive a company who manufacture affordable family cars…But a company who manufacture cars which aren’t really family oriented, don’t meet the emission rates and which can cost between £50,000 and £80,000.

Now firstly, let’s think about who could afford this much for a car. Is £25 a day really going to be such a strain for them? Are these the kinds of people who easily spend £10k a month maintaining their ‘LifeStyle’?

If £25 a day, which is about £500 a month and only marginally more (by about £10-20) than what my husband pays for his monthly train commute to London on public transport, really that difficult for them to pay, then why did they buy a Porsche in the first place?

Image? or “Is it Ego Captain?” I don’t believe anyone’s penis is that small, or at least disproportionatly so to the size of their brain.

Also I personally find it disgusting that people would spend on a car amounts far in excess of many families’ combined incomes or what teachers, nurses, EMTs working in London earn, who probably rely on running their old cars (with high emissions) into the ground, or on public transport to commute from whereever they can afford to live.

Anyway, that is my non-driver rant for the day and should keep my indignation power cells charged for some time.